How to use SportCrow for fantasy football

SportCrow projects every NFL player every week and turns those projections into answers: who to start, where players rank, and who might not play. Almost everything below is free and needs no account. Here is the site, page by page.

Start or sit

Pick two players on Start/Sit, or open a comparison from any player page. The answer is at the top.

• The call. “Start CeeDee Lamb” and how often he wins. We play the game out thousands of times; 53% means Lamb outscores Pickens in 53 of every 100.
• Close call. Under 55% the card says so, and the pick is only a slight lean.
• The tiebreaker. On a close call the card names, for free, the player with the higher ceiling (or the safer floor when their ceilings match). The numbers behind it are part of Pro.
• Last week. A line under the call tells you how last week’s call between the same two players turned out, right or wrong.
• After the games. Once both have played, the card shows who outscored whom and whether our call was right.

Switch scoring at the top of the page: PPR, Half PPR, Standard, DraftKings or FanDuel. Each has its own projections. Further down are both players’ projected stat lines, their last four games, their injury status and how many points each defense allows to the position.

Player pages

Every player page opens with this week’s call for him.

“Start” or “Sit” comes from where his projection ranks at his position in a 12-team league, with his tier. You also get his matchup, his injury status and quick links to close calls against similar players.

Rankings

Rankings order every position by this week’s median projection.

• Tiers group players whose projections are close. Inside a tier the order matters less than the matchup you like.
• Move shows how far a player rose or fell since last week.
• Each player links to a comparison with the player ranked just below him.

Projections

Projections is the full table: every player’s median and projected stat line. Filter by position or team, or search for a name.

The median is the middle outcome: half his simulated games land above it, half below. It already prices in his chance to play, so a questionable player’s median sits below his healthy one.

Injuries

The injury report lists every player with a designation (Out, Doubtful, Questionable, IR) or a missed practice, with his chance to play, this week’s projection and the next man up.

• Chance to play comes from how often players in the same spot (same designation, same practice week) actually played in past seasons.
• Practice notes show the day of the practice. Read on a Sunday, “Did not practice Fri” is the team’s last word before the game.
• Team news. Late decisions (“ruled out Saturday”) come in within about 20 minutes, before the official file updates.
• Latest changes on the side list every status that moved, newest first.

Each team has its own page too, linked from the report.

How accurate we are

Accuracy scores every projection we published. Projections freeze at kickoff, and as soon as a game’s stats are in we compare them with what happened.

• Typical miss: the average distance between our median and the real score.
• Within 5 points: how often we landed less than a touchdown away.
• Closer than season average: how often we beat the simple guess “he scores his average”.
• Head-to-head calls: for two startable players, how often the one we ranked higher scored more. This is the number behind every start/sit call.

Ask the Crow

Ask the Crow answers fantasy questions in plain words: “Should I start Zay Flowers or Ja’Marr Chase?”, “Who are the top tight ends this week?”, “Is Breece Hall playing?”. Answers come from the same projections, with the numbers shown.

A free account gets 3 questions a day.

What Pro adds

• Floor, ceiling, boom and bust for every player, on start/sit pages, rankings and projections.
• Both outcome curves side by side on every start/sit page.
• The Projection Builder: start from our projections and change what you believe. Sit a player and his teammates pick up his share, call a game a shootout, and save, compare and publish your builds.
• 100 Crow questions a day and the projections as a CSV download.

Pro is $14.99 a month or $119.04 a year. The first day is free, with no card needed.

The numbers, in one place

• Median: the middle outcome of his simulated games, chance to play included.
• Floor: a bad but realistic week. Only 1 game in 10 comes in lower.
• Ceiling: a great but realistic week. Only 1 game in 10 comes in higher.
• Boom: how often he has a big game (PPR): 25+ points for a quarterback, 20+ for a running back or receiver, 15+ for a tight end, 12+ for a kicker or defense.
• Bust: how often he lets you down: under 12 for a quarterback, 6 for a running back or receiver, 4 for a tight end, 5 for a kicker, 3 for a defense.
• Tier: a group of players close enough that the matchup can decide.

If you need a big week to win, start the higher ceiling. If you’re favored, start the safer floor.

When things update

• Projections refresh every 20 minutes and freeze for each game at kickoff.
• Injury news is checked every 20 minutes, from the official report and team news.
• The new week starts Tuesday at 4 AM ET, after Monday night’s game.